Open Arms
by Animorphgirl
Summary: Steph and Joe watch a popular TV show together, and Steph learns something new about her cop boyfriend. Takes place right after "Takedown Twenty". Fluff/romance. Reviews are always appreciated. CUPCAKE.


**Open Arms**

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Joe Morelli, Stephanie Plum, or any characters or parts of the "Stephanie Plum" series. These characters are being used without expressed permission, but without any financial gain on my part whatsoever. Please do not sue me-I am a poor librarian, still living at home with my parents.

**Author's Note**: This fic takes place after the end of "Takedown Twenty". The TV show Joe and Steph were watching was "The Voice" (season 6), and the descriptions I used match what happened in that episode, but at the same time, I wanted to be ambiguous enough so that they could fit into multiple categories and multiple seasons. I won't want to make this fic any more dated than it has to be!

A huge thank you to Julie for beta-reading!

Four days had passed since the "Uncle Sunny" mess had been cleared up. Joe Morelli, my on again, off again boyfriend (currently on) and I were currently relaxing on my living room couch and looking for something decent to watch on TV.

He'd been shot recently, but had decided to go off the painkillers because they made him drool and unable to feel certain parts of his body. While on the meds, Morelli had also warned me that the drooling might be permanent if it was fifty years later and we were married.

I'd asked him if he intended that to be a proposal, and Morelli had dodged the subject by saying he was still saving up for the ring.

And that was about as far as we had gotten on the subject, even though I had sort of wanted to bring it up again later. Unfortunately, when I'd gotten to his house, his whole family had been there, including little kids who had gotten covered in dog doo, and somehow it hadn't been the right time to have _that_ talk.

By now, I'd sort of chickened out entirely. I wasn't sure if I wanted marriage, since I was still attracted to Ranger, and he was clearly interested in me.

Well, in my body.

So, we'd kind of put that whole topic on indefinite hold/moratorium, and now we were enjoying a nice evening at my apartment. Morelli had brought over pizza, and there was even enough left over to serve as a meal for me the next day. Bob was taking a nap on my living room floor, and Rex was taking a nap after spending all day on his wheel. I knew that Morelli and I would be intimate later that night, but at the moment, we were both too full to enjoy those kinds of activities. It was turning out to be a great evening with my boyfriend.

Except for the aggravating task of finding something good to watch on TV.

I subscribed to a basic cable package since I couldn't afford anything better. Morelli had a slightly better plan. Even so, it was the time of year where, even if you had a few thousand channels, you'd be hard pressed to find anything worth watching unless you liked reality TV competitions.

We were _almost_ that desperate.

"How about this?" Joe asked me as he changed the channel to a cooking show featuring an overweight woman with a haircut from the 80's. She was showing the audience how to make a spicy dish involving fish.

I shook my head, and he changed the channel. Again.

"We've been doing this for the past half hour," I reminded Morelli. "I don't think it's going to be any different."

"Well, it's too early to go to bed, you don't have any skips to chase, and I _don't_ want to read another Nora Roberts novel, even if it is one of her mysteries," was Morelli's reply. "So, unless you want to take Bob for a walk and see if you can get him to poop on Joyce Barnhardt's lawn again, I can't think of much else we can do for entertainment."

"I already did that this afternoon," I said, rather mournfully. It hadn't been particularly successful-Bob had only wanted to pee.

"Then, it's back to channel surfing," Morelli sighed. "Too bad, I was kind of hoping to see Bob in action."

"Come with me tomorrow," I promised. "It has to come out sometime soon."

He ruffled my hair. "You're nuts, Cupcake."

"You say that like it's a surprise."

"Nope, I knew you were insane since we were kids."

While we'd been talking, Morelli had been changing the channel every five seconds, waiting for me to nod or shake my head if the show looked interesting. I'd been shaking my head so much it felt loose on my shoulders.

However, the show he stopped on didn't look too bad. It had been going on for the past half hour (when we'd started watching TV, or I should say, _attempting _to watch TV), but as it was a reality TV competition, neither of us paid much attention to it.

Now, though, we were desperate enough to give it serious consideration.

"Let's give it five minutes," I suggested. "At least it's not one of those shows where the contestants eat bugs."

Based on the people in the background, and the announcer/narrator, it looked like a singing competition.

I always viewed the people who participated in those shows with a mixture of awe and queasiness. Maybe it was because _my_ voice wouldn't exactly shatter glass, but calling it average would probably be the nicest thing you could say about it.

At least I could carry a tune. My sister Valerie couldn't do that, but growing up, she'd had good grades and perfect behavior, so her lack of being able to sing wasn't a real issue.

I honestly had no idea if Morelli could sing or not, because the topic had never come up. It wasn't something we avoided talking about (like Ranger or marriage), but more something that had never been of much interest to either of us. It ranked somewhere between "what are your favorite color placemats?" and "what shape of dog food do you prefer to buy?".

By that, I wasn't sure which of those questions were _less_ interesting.

Still, watching a show about people competing in a singing competition for a million dollars, or whatever they were offering on this particular show, sounded better than channel surfing for another half hour.

Morelli set the remote down on the table and put an arm around my back, pulling me towards him. I settled against his chest and closed my eyes. One of the nice things about this kind of TV, I noted, was that there wasn't a whole lot of "watching" required. I supposed that it helped to see what kind of outfits the contestants were wearing, or what their faces looked like when they tried to hold out the long notes (with varying degrees of success, I might add, but it wasn't like my vocal range came anywhere close to that). Still, it wasn't like it was crucial to understanding the plot of the show.

I knew that we hadn't started watching at the beginning of the season. Some TV shows chose to showcase bad singers on purpose, to make transition to the good singers look even better. I remembered Lula saying that this show wasn't one of those-everyone who came on had at least _some_ talent, and often people who got eliminated in the beginning went on in later seasons and made it pretty far. But part of the reason I knew we were pretty far along was because the singers were already in groups of five, and apparently only three of those people would make it to sing for the "live shows". At that point, America would have the responsibility of voting the person they liked best thru to win the whole thing.

I didn't think that most of the people who won these kinds of shows got any more than the standard fifteen minutes of fame. Then again, I wasn't in the music business, so maybe they ended up gaining popularity in certain groups. I certainly never listened to Indie Rock, so I wouldn't be able to say who the top five singers of the year were in that genre.

Or any singer, for that matter.

Still, everyone who sang did a good job. At least, that's how I heard it. Like I said, I wasn't musically inclined, so it was possible that half of the people were hitting all of the wrong notes. But none of the judges said they were awful, and the audience didn't boo anyone. So, they must have been doing all right.

Morelli began to play with my hair with the hand that wasn't wrapped around my back. I loved it when he did this, because it was so relaxing. It also wasn't the kind of thing you'd expect a tough cop to do, so sometimes I teased him about it and threaten to tell his cop friends. He'd usually laugh and say, "They'd think you were kidding, Cupcake."

After each singer took their turn, the judges (or coaches, as they were called on this show, even though they took on the same role as judges in any televised singing competition) told the contestants what they had done well, and what they needed to work on. There was also the mandatory banter and innuendo between the judges, because it must have been a rule that the competition had to have enough comedic relief so the audience could relax. Two of the judges took a lot of pleasure in calling each other "moron" and "stupid".

"They can't really hate each other," Morelli commented at one point. "Bet they're best buds in real life."

"What makes you think this isn't real life?" I teased.

"Right."

I glanced at the clock and saw that the show had about twenty minutes left. "They're going to have to choose soon," I commented. "Don't they usually save the best acts for last?"

"Think so," he agreed.

The next person to go onstage was a rock and roll singer, complete with tattoos and multiple piercings, including one on her lip. I never had any problem with people who did either, but I figured they must have a high pain tolerance. I mean, how can you eat with a lip ring or a tongue ring and not worry about food getting stuck inside, or the whole thing getting infected? At least with tattoos, you got them and there was no maintenance required.

Not to mention, I loved Morelli's eagle tattoo.

I remembered that when Valerie and I had gotten our ears pierced, they got infected despite us doing everything the person at the mall told us. We found out later that it was because they hadn't used enough alcohol on the ear, or the gun had been the wrong one, or something crazy like that.

Even though my ears turned out okay and the piercings didn't need to close up, I never wanted another hole in my body after that.

Neither, for that matter, did Val.

The song choice the tattooed woman had chosen showed up on the TV screen, along with her name. She'd be singing "Open Arms" by the musical group (or artist?) Journey.

At first, I paid more or less attention to her as I had to the other artists. I'd never heard of the song or the group before, but judging by the woman's appearance and what the judges said about her, it would probably be a rock song with more background music than music from the artist.

Morelli must have had the same idea, because he said, "She'll probably go home after this."

But once she got through the first verse, I felt entranced. Not so much because of her voice, though it was as good as you could expect from someone who had reached that level on the show. But because of the words.

I wasn't overly romantic, but even I thought that a lot of the lyrics applied to me and Morelli. Of course, most people thought that love songs were "meant" for them and their significant other.

Still, this hearing this song made me feel like it had been written _about_ us.

Joe must have been feeling it too, because he'd stopped playing with my hair about halfway through the song. By the time it ended, we were both watching the artist, as well as listening closely. The judges gave her a lot of praise for her song choice, and the judge whose team she was on complained _again_ about how he would have to send two people home after this stage of the competition.

"I don't think she'll be one of the people to go home," I told Morelli.

"Don't think so," he agreed.

She wasn't eliminated, which made me happy, but not entranced enough to want to watch every episode of the show up until the finale.

I probably would have forgotten about the whole thing, except the next morning, I woke up to the sound of Joe singing in the shower.

Morelli _never_ sang in the shower (although he sometimes had interesting talks with himself, usually about work), but the door to the bathroom was open, and I could easily make out the words despite the running water.

It took me a second to realize the lyrics were from the song the tattooed girl had sung.

"Lying beside you/here in the dark/feeling your heartbeat with mine.." I could hear. A minute later, "Living without you/Living alone/This empty house seems so cold/Wanting to hold you/Wanting you near/How much I wanted you home."

Who would have guessed that Joe Morelli, my Italian cop, would have had the voice of an professional singer?

Had this been some kind of romantic comedy, I probably would have gotten out of bed and joined Morelli in the shower, reaching him just in time to hear the last words. Instead, I lay back in bed and let his voice wash over me. By the time he sang the last part (Believe what I say/So here I am/With open arms/Hoping you'll see/What your love means to me/Open arms), I wished that the song had gone on for longer, so I could keep listening to Morelli's voice. I hoped that he'd continue after the lyrics ended, maybe start singing it again or even start another song, but by that time, he'd finished with the shower and turned the water off. I heard him enter my room with a towel wrapped around him.

"Hey, Cupcake," he greeted as he turned on the light, noticing I didn't flinch or complain that he'd woken me up, the way I usually did.

"Morning," I said. Then, "Have any extra time before work?"

He grinned. "Always."

Afterwards, we lay together and I told him I could hear him singing in the shower.

"It's a pretty powerful song, isn't it?" he asked me, turning on his side to face me. "I liked the part about...how love meant having open arms."

I thought about how it kind of described us. How we'd known each other since we were kids, how we'd broken up more times than I could remember, but how we somehow kept finding each other again.

I guessed you could say it was because either one of us liked to be alone, but I thought there was more to it than just that. It may have taken me awhile to say it, and I still rarely did say it, but I loved Joe Morelli. And he loved me. We might drive each other crazy (okay, I might drive _him_ crazy), but at the end of the day, he was the person I went home to.

And he was the one who waited for me with open arms.

"It's a great song," I agreed. "If we ever end up married, it could be one of the ones we dance to. You know, at the wedding."

"Definitely," Joe agreed.

"Just promise me one thing," I told Morelli, before things got too serious. He raised his eyebrows, and I continued. "Never go on a TV singing competition and sing that. Because it's bad enough that half of the burg wants to sleep with you. There would be riots after you appeared on TV singing _that_."

He laughed. "Deal."

"Thanks."

He stroked my face with his hand. "So, can I ask _you_ a question?"

My breath almost caught in my chest. "Okay," I managed.

"You really think I could go compete on a singing competition?"

I threw a pillow at him. "Have you heard yourself, or _seen_ yourself? Everyone would know you would win in the first round."

He grinned. "Nice to know I have a backup career after retiring from the police force."

"No way, Morelli! You promised," I complained.

"Well...since you asked nicely," he relented. "Of course, now, I'll have to finish saving the rest of the money up for a ring. Because I _do_ want to sing it when we get married."

I turned on my side to stare at him. "That's assuming I'd say yes."

"Well, Cupcake," he grinned impishly, "I won't ask until I've saved up enough."

Uh oh.

"Well, then, Morelli, how much more do you have to go?"

He pulled me close to him. "I'm pretty close. At least, to a down payment."

**The End**


End file.
